Never a dull moment! Consultant. Educator. Communicator. Polymath. I never take myself too seriously. When I am being serious, I help businesses grow 25-100% without having to spend any more money on advertising. Oh yes, there's more...

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In tech comm, we often talk about “customer support liabilities”, i.e., product issues that make a customer call for support (which is expensive for the company). Task-oriented design, usability, and good user testing can prevent these costly flaws in a product. In addition to the expense of paying for technical support, there is lost productivity and greater user frustration which companies frequently don’t figure into their analysis of their bottom line. Here’s an example of a fixable issue that causes people a LOT of problems.

A large western college has an online testing system that only works in Internet Explorer. (That’s problem #1.) The only correct way to exit the testing system is to click the small Logout link in the upper right corner. If you close your browser, exit using the X in the corner, your computer crashes, you close your laptop, or exit the system in any way other than with the Logout link, the system _locks you out for a minimum of two hours_. This also happens if there is another login to the testing system on your account from a different machine.

Supposedly, this is a security “feature”, but in reality, it is a huge problem for the users. Students being who they are, they leave their test to the last minute, and then, stressed and anxious to finish, they can easily become locked out.

In the student materials there is a note about the flaw in the system, but it’s easy to miss or forget. You can imagine the problems this design flaw — because flaw is what it is — causes for students, faculty, and customer support.

Does it take money to fix this? Of course it does. But that cost is far less than the overt and hidden costs of it working the way it does. In this case, they have downloaded the liability onto the students, who are least able to deal with such a problem.

Coming back from an enforced hiatus with my business I was musing about whether this was an opportunity or a setback. While there wasn’t much I could do about it at the time, worrying about it would have made things worse. Worry is never recommended. Most business owners have enough to worry about, without fretting about things over which they have no control.

Going offline with one’s business can create additional problems — loss of mind share and market share as well, lag in keeping up with the competition, and an inability to figure out where to pick things back up. But sometimes an absence from the marketplace is a good thing. It can force you to become more innovative as you attempt to make up any lost ground. It may also give you a chance to recharge your batteries so to speak.

The caterpillar has to go into a cocoon in order to become a butterfly. Perhaps businesses need a time out now and then to morph into something more wonderful.

I recently came across this blurb by one of the executives who was involved in the release of New Coke on April 23, 1985. Sergio Zyman says that “he knew New Coke was going to be a disaster almost from the day of its launch”. In a summary of the fiasco at snopes.com the thinking seems to be that this was a genuine mistake on the part of Coca-Cola executives. There are no analyses that I could find where the risky decision to implement New Coke was put under a microscope from a business perspective, but Coca-Cola’s own description of the event shows that they were surprised by consumer reaction.

Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, my marketing mind says the whole thing was brilliant. They couldn’t lose! And in fact, they didn’t. Classic Coke was reintroduced and came back stronger than ever, subsequently leading to immense growth in the Coca-Cola company. (more…)

When I ask small business owners about their customers, I often get long pauses and even blank stares. Many business owners are so focused on their products or services that they forget to pay attention to their customer numbers. One of my first tasks is to shift that focus onto the customer. Without customers, there IS no business. Therefore, it is critical to every business to know precisely how they get and keep customers.

There are three key metrics every business owner needs to know about those customers:

In today’s news, Metrolinx, the provincial agency that oversees transit planning in the Greater Toronto Area, stated that it was considering charging for parking at the GO Transit parking lots. Publishing this possible action is a clever move — it allows them to gauge customer reaction and get feedback before taking any action. If you’re planning a major change to how you to do business, finding out what customers think about it ahead of time is a sound idea.

As the comments to the news story show, customers are overwhelmingly against paying for parking at GO Transit lots. They feel they are already paying for parking in the price of the fare. Some have noted that ridership will go down as people seek to car pool instead of pay an additional $100 to $200 a month. Alternatively, some people will abandon public transit and drive their cars into the city, an activity GO Transit was designed to reduce.

While the 65,000 parking spaces at GO Transit lots can rightly be seen as an untapped business asset, instituting a parking fee for those spaces will hurt business growth. Customers see it as “double-dipping” into their pockets, and have clearly expressed that they don’t like the idea.

This is a case where the customer backlash will be far greater than any benefit from charging for those parking spaces. Business growth at the expense of customer satisfaction is false growth, and will not last. There are other ways of increasing revenue; choosing a course that turns your customers against you is never the correct one.

In my analysis of the exotic furniture shop that felt it couldn’t compete with “the big boys”, I mentioned the concept of an “anti-USP”. This is any factor that works against your Unique Selling Proposition. Your USP is one of the most valuable aspects of your business. It clearly states why customers should choose to do business with you instead of your competitors, and it emphasizes the value you offer your customers.

When you have any anti-USPs, however, all the good work you do in your business can be negated by one or more simple things. For the exotic furniture store, the used look of their furniture negated the value of these high-priced pieces.

Sometimes even the business name can be an anti-USP, as in the case of a former client who had the word “Kwik” in his business name. That particular spelling of the word “quick” indicates a low-priced, lower value service so sets up a customer expectation that yes, they’ll get something fast, but it is going to be inexpensive. Sadly, that business owner’s services were not inexpensive at all. Potential customers who invited him to give them a quote got immediate sticker shock as the price far exceeded what they were expecting to pay. His business suffered accordingly. (more…)

So here’s the final word on what I think happened to this great little business. We’ve already established that the business owner was capable and knowledgeable, adept in most areas of running his store. The business was capitalizing on multiple marketing pillars and was taking advantage of many of its marketing assets such as owner expertise, location, publicity, unique product, and community relationships.

If so much was going right, what went wrong?

As I mentioned in Part 1, the owner felt that he was squeezed out because he could not compete with “the big boys”, notably Ikea.

Yes, the business could have had a more compelling USP (Unique Selling Proposition) but it was not far off. Most of the messaging about the store in some way captured how this shop was different from its competitors. It had a distinct advantage over competitors like impersonal big box furniture stores. When working with any small business client, our first step is to ensure they have a solid USP in place, because that is the foundation upon which all other aspects of the business can be built. (more…)

Here’s more to the story about the small shop that had to close due to competition from “the big boys”. The shop in question sold exotic and “funky” furniture pieces, accents, and other decorative items. It had a good location in a heritage building on a main street, and an energetic, smart business owner who had experience in marketing in the fashion business. They were making good use of Facebook to post photos and other information about their products. They had received a number of excellent reviews via social media and had received some local publicity. They were listed in most of the local directories of shops and businesses. The business owner was committed to environmentally-responsible (sustainable) wood items, and he recognized the value of running the business “on the cheap”, without unnecessary expenditures. This is a great foundation for a thriving small business.

In fact, this business DID have a unique selling proposition. It carried one-of-a-kind, exotic, unique, different, and unusual furnishing items. Its location positioned it to cater to an upscale customer who had money to spend. While the business may have had to pay a fair bit to import these items, the customers wouldn’t have minded the necessary markup due to the uniqueness of the products. Also, there were ways the business could have lowered costs on those pieces. The neighborhood in which the store was located had undergone an urban revival, raising the demographic to people who had disposable income and who were looking for lifestyle enhancements. (more…)

Came across this note from a contact on Twitter: “My friend just had to close his small shop. He said true retail is dead and that one just can’t compete with the big boys.” This saddens me. This shop closure represents a loss in many ways: loss of capital, loss of jobs, loss of a dream. And it didn’t have to happen. My guess, and it’s probably a good one based on the person’s comment, is that this shop owner didn’t know how to leverage his marketing assets.

He didn’t have a USP — a unique selling proposition. That is the BEST way to compete with the “big boys”. A small shop can differentiate in ways that are beyond the big box stores. It can offer more personalized service, including stronger customer relationships. It can offer niche products that are unprofitable for mass market stores to carry. It can add complementary services that enhance the value to the customer. (more…)

When I speak with clients about the Core Four marketing steps that every business should undertake when looking for growth, part of my job is to help them understand that making marketing part of their business systems is vital to make their business a going concern.

Crafting a Unique Selling Proposition (USP), integrating that USP into all your marketing activities, setting up processes for customer relationship management (CRM), and establishing processes for joint ventures and alliances all contribute to making a marketing system that is repeatable, measurable, and effective.

If you do not have systems in place in your business, you are at risk. Here’s why. If your sales processes depend upon the knowledge of the business owner or the top sales person, you need those individuals in order to make a sale. Customers may buy because they like you, or because you have a business relationship with them. But if those people are not available, no sale can be made. By writing down the USP and ensuring it is communicated during every customer contact, you take the sales process out of the head of the business owner and the top sales person and make it into a system that anyone can use. (more…)

FULL of practical, do-it-now, easy to understand strategies that will boost your business, increase your profits, and get you more customers. Trying just ONE idea in this book can have a profound impact on your business. Don't wait any longer to grow your business! Click here to order.